Morning in Konoha was too bright.
Naruto squinted up at the sky as he ran, orange jacket flapping, sandals slapping against the stone. The village felt louder than usual; vendors shouting, kids talking, adults muttering. Or maybe his head was just buzzing too much.
"Today's it! I'm gonna pass, believe it!" he yelled to no one in particular.
A couple of villagers gave him the usual looks.
"That kid again…"
"Running around like it's a game…"
Naruto stuck his tongue out once he was past them and pumped his legs harder. He didn't have time to think about them. Not today.
As he ran, something hovered faintly at the edge of his vision. A big, ghostly number, always there when he paid attention.
10000
It had been there ever since that alley a week ago. At first he'd tried to swat it away, but it never left. Most of the time he just ignored it. Today, he pretended it wasn't there at all.
By the time he reached the Academy steps, his breathing was a little fast, but excitement pushed him forward. He took the stairs two at a time, almost tripping on the last one, then grabbed the rail and steadied himself.
Chapter 2
His hand tingled.
Somewhere under his skin, that strange feeling from a week ago flickered. The alley. The frozen air. The paper stuck in mid-fall. His room, the clock, the dust hanging still.
The world freeze thing.
He swallowed, then shook his head hard enough that his blond spikes rustled.
"Nope. Not using it. I'm gonna pass for real," he muttered.
The faint number in his vision stayed where it was, annoying and bright.
10000
He slid the classroom door open.
"I'M HERE!" he shouted. "THE FUTURE HOKAGE HAS ARRIVED!"
Half the class jumped. The other half groaned.
"Geez, Naruto, shut up," Kiba complained, slouching in his seat.
Sakura turned in her chair and glared. "You're late AND loud! Could you be any more annoying?"
Naruto puffed his cheeks out. "Hey! I was mentally preparing for my super cool exam victory, dattebayo!"
Sasuke didn't even look up from his desk by the window. That annoyed Naruto more than all the glares combined.
His eyes flicked to the front.
No Iruka yet.
Naruto's annoyance turned into a smirk.
He padded quietly to the chalkboard, snatched the eraser, and balanced it carefully on the top of the sliding door frame. He pulled his hands back slowly, tongue poking out in concentration.
Kiba watched, eyebrows up. "You never learn, huh?"
"This is an important ritual," Naruto whispered back, very serious. "If I don't prank Iruka-sensei, the exam will go bad."
"That's not how it works," Shikamaru mumbled, head on his arms. "What a drag…"
Naruto ignored him, darted back to his seat, and flopped down. His leg bounced under the desk. His heart was pounding, and not just because of the prank.
Footsteps approached in the hall.
He leaned forward, grinning.
The door slid open.
Thump.
The eraser dropped straight onto Iruka's forehead, leaving a lovely white mark right in the middle of his hair.
The class burst out laughing. Naruto slapped the desk and howled.
"PUHAHAHA! PERFECT! I'M A GENIUS!"
A vein popped on Iruka's forehead. He picked up the eraser slowly, eyes twitching.
"Narutooooo…"
A lump on the head and a lecture later, Naruto was sitting at the very front row, arms crossed, sulking. Iruka stood in front of the class, rubbing his temple.
"Today is your final exam," Iruka said, voice firm. "You pass this, you become genin. First is the written test. No cheating. Work seriously."
Naruto sagged. "Written…"
Papers rustled as Iruka and Mizuki handed them down the rows. Naruto took his sheet and stared at it.
Lines and lines of questions stared back.
"What… is the definition of… chakra molding… draw and label the basic… what…" he breathed, eyes glazing.
He squinted at the words. They danced a little.
The ghostly number hovered just above the paper, stubbornly in his line of sight.
10000
He made a face at it.
"Begin!" Iruka's voice floated from the front.
Pens started moving all around him.
Naruto stared at the first question.
His mind went blank.
He tried another question. Same thing. He recognized some words, but they all tangled up in his head. He drummed his fingers, feeling sweat bead on his forehead.
He cast a quick glance sideways.
Sakura was already halfway down the page, lips moving silently as she wrote. Sasuke's face was calm, his pen making neat lines. Even Shikamaru was lazily scribbling, yawning in between.
Naruto looked back at his empty page.
His stomach clenched.
If I bomb this, the practical will have to be perfect… If the practical's bad too, I'm done…
His heart pounded so loud he almost didn't hear his own thoughts.
The number in his vision sat there, smug and bright.
10000
Without really deciding to, he thought about the world freeze thing.
If everything stopped, even just for a little bit…
He could walk around. Peek at their papers. Just enough to not completely crash the test. No one would know.
His hand shook on the pencil.
"That's cheating," he whispered under his breath.
No one heard. Everyone was too busy scratching answers.
He chewed his lip, staring at the first question, the letters blurring.
"Come on, come on…" he hissed.
Nothing came.
The pressure in his chest got tighter and tighter. His eyes stung.
"If I fail again… if they laugh again…" he thought, panic rising.
The feeling that had answered him in the alley squirmed under his skin, like it heard him.
He swallowed hard.
"Just once," he thought. "Just a little. Just enough."
He closed his eyes for a split second.
"Stop," he begged, in his head and out loud in the tiniest whisper.
The world dropped into silence.
The scratching of pens vanished. The breeze at the windows disappeared. Even the ticking of the big clock on the wall cut off mid-click.
The number in front of his eyes flashed brighter.
10000
Naruto's breath hitched.
"…You again," he muttered.
The number flickered.
9000
He jerked a little. "Huh?!"
He pushed himself to his feet. Every movement already felt heavy, like he'd been running. The number drifted with him, always in front of his eyes no matter where he looked.
He staggered into the aisle and moved to Sakura's desk.
Her eyes were stuck on the page, unblinking. Naruto looked down at her answers.
The words were neat and crammed with kanji he didn't fully understand.
"Chakra is the combination of… uh…" He squinted, trying to copy the general shape into his memory. His head throbbed.
The number ticked again.
8000
Naruto flinched. "Stop doing that! What are you even counting?!"
He stumbled to Sasuke's desk. Sasuke's writing was a little less cramped, but no easier to read.
Naruto huffed in frustration. "Why does everyone write so complicated…"
7000
He realized he'd left his pencil, cursed under his breath, and shuffled back to his own desk, legs protesting. His chest burned like he'd been running laps.
He snatched up his pencil and started scribbling in his own answers, copying any words he recognized. Back and forth, eyes dragging over questions, head pounding louder each time.
The number kept shrinking, one bright change at a time.
6000
He managed maybe two questions properly.
Another answer was probably completely wrong, but it looked impressive. That had to count for something.
His vision started to fuzz at the edges. His legs felt like they were stuck in mud. The quiet in his ears turned to a loud buzzing.
5000
"Nngh… o-okay… enough… enough…" he panted.
He had no idea how long it had been. He just knew that big floaty number was getting smaller, and the smaller it got, the worse he felt.
4000
His whole body screamed to stop. His hand trembled so badly he could barely write.
He swayed, knuckles white on the pencil.
"Just… a bit… more…"
3000
He sucked in a breath, tried to straighten, but his head felt like it was full of sand.
2000
The glowing number flickered weakly, like a lantern about to go out.
Naruto squinted at it through the fuzz in his eyes.
"Why… are you… so… small now…?"
1000
The number shattered into tiny shards of light and vanished.
The noise crashed back.
Pens scratched. Someone sniffed. The clock resumed ticking from exactly where it had stopped. No one reacted to anything strange.
Naruto slumped over his desk, sucking in air. His hand shook as he tried to fill in one more answer.
Iruka glanced up from his seat at the front, frowning slightly. Naruto looked pale, sweat beading on his forehead.
"Naruto, are you okay?" Iruka called softly.
"I-I'm fine!" Naruto blurted, waving a hand without looking up. "Just… working extra hard, dattebayo!"
Iruka watched him for a moment longer, then went back to his grading sheet.
Naruto gripped his pencil so tight his fingers hurt. Inside, he felt… scraped out. Like someone had taken that wild, crashing energy inside him and scooped almost all of it away, leaving only a tiny bit at the bottom.
If he stared really hard at the corner of his vision, he could see the number again now, faint and small.
1000
He didn't understand what it meant. He just knew it being tiny felt awful.
He finished the test as best he could and dropped the pencil when Iruka called time, arm aching, head pounding.
As he sat there, not moving, breathing slowly, the number twitched.
1100
He blinked.
"…Huh?"
He watched it for a bit, but looking at it made his head hurt more, so he stopped paying attention and just let his forehead rest on the desk.
By the time they collected the papers and told the class to move outside for the practical, the faint number had crept up a little more, like a lazy bug crawling up a wall.
1400
Naruto barely noticed.
Later, when they moved to the practice part of the exam, the drained feeling didn't go away.
Standing in line outside the exam room, Naruto bounced on his heels automatically, but even that got tiring fast. His legs felt weirdly light and heavy at the same time, like they weren't his.
He glanced sideways once, annoyed, and saw the number drifting quietly in the corner of his sight.
1500
"Make up your mind already," he muttered at it.
One by one, students went in, then came out with silver gleaming on their foreheads. Kiba strutted. Ino squealed. Shikamaru just yawned and poked at his headband.
Naruto forced himself to smile every time someone passed him. Each new forehead protector was a little twist inside his chest.
"Naruto Uzumaki!" Iruka called from inside.
Naruto swallowed and walked in.
Iruka and Mizuki sat behind the desk, the stack of headbands smaller now. Sunlight slanted in from the windows, making everything feel too clear.
"Alright, Naruto," Iruka said. "First, the Transformation Jutsu. Turn into me."
Naruto straightened. This, at least, he'd been practicing.
"Right!" he shouted.
He formed the hand signs. As he pulled chakra together, the number in his vision dipped like someone had tugged it down by a string.
1400
He grabbed onto the feeling clumsily and pushed.
"Transform!"
Smoke puffed.
An Iruka-shaped Naruto appeared. It still wasn't perfect. The face was a little off, and faint whisker marks showed if you looked closely, but it was better than his usual.
Iruka studied him, then nodded. "Pass for Transformation."
Naruto dropped the jutsu and grinned, breathing a little heavier than a simple trick should've caused.
"Hehehe, told you I could do it!"
The number crawled back up a little as he stood still and caught his breath.
1450
Mizuki smiled over at him. "Good job, Naruto. Now, the Clone Jutsu."
Naruto's grin vanished.
He felt for that inner energy again. There wasn't much. The freeze in the exam, the little bit he'd used for Transformation—it all added up. What was left felt thin and shaky.
He could see the number clearly now, like the world was making sure he noticed.
1400
He stepped into the middle of the room, heart hammering.
"If there's less… maybe it won't go crazy this time…" he thought. "Maybe it'll finally work…"
Iruka gave him an encouraging nod. "Take your time. Don't push too hard."
Naruto shut his eyes. He drew up what little chakra he had. Instead of the usual roaring storm, he felt a small stream, trembling.
He wrapped his focus around it.
"Come on… just one time," he whispered to himself. "Just once, work…"
He formed the seals, hands a little clumsy from fatigue.
As he pushed chakra into the technique, the number in front of him plunged.
1300
1200
1100
"Clone Jutsu!"
Smoke burst out, thick enough to sting his nose.
Inside the smoke, for one dizzy heartbeat, Naruto saw it.
A clone stood in front of him. A proper one. Not see-through, not drooping. It looked… like him. Same wild hair, same grin, same posture, staring back in surprise.
Naruto's eyes went wide.
I… I did it—
The number staggered again, dropping hard.
1000
His knees buckled a little. The tiny bit of chakra left in him wobbled, slipping from his grasp. The clone's face twisted. Its knees shook.
By the time the smoke cleared enough for Iruka and Mizuki to see, the clone had already collapsed to the floor, pale and limp, half-formed again.
What Naruto had seen—the single perfect moment—was gone like it had never been.
To the teachers, it looked the same as always.
Iruka's mouth tightened. Mizuki's eyes flicked from the sickly clone to Naruto's drained face.
There was a long, heavy pause.
Naruto stared at the pathetic clone on the floor, breathing hard. His heart pounded with a weird mix of hope and horror.
"I swear it was… it was fine for a second…" he thought desperately. "I saw it. It worked. It really did…"
The number in his vision sat there, barely more than a glowing speck.
1000
But there was nothing left in him to try again. He knew if he pushed one more time, he'd probably just pass out on the floor.
Iruka drew a slow breath.
"I'm sorry, Naruto," he said quietly. "You fail."
The word hit even though he'd been bracing for it.
Naruto swallowed hard. His throat hurt. His eyes burned.
He forced a laugh, but it came out rough. "Hehe… guess I messed up again, huh?"
Iruka's expression was pained. "You didn't make the required number of proper clones. We can't pass you this time."
Naruto's fingers twisted into fists. He stared at the floor.
"I-It's fine!" he blurted, louder than he meant to. "I don't care! I didn't wanna pass some dumb exam anyway!"
His voice cracked on "pass."
He turned quickly so they wouldn't see his face and stomped toward the door, vision blurring around the edges. His body felt empty, like someone had scooped out his insides and left only the shape.
He didn't try to grab the world again. He had nothing left to grab with. Even if he reached for that strange feeling, the ghostly number stayed stubbornly at the bottom, refusing to move.
The classroom door slid shut behind him with a wooden clack.
Outside, the courtyard had turned into a blur of happy noise.
Kids laughed and compared their headbands. Proud parents crowded around. Some of the new genin were already showing off with little jutsu and stances.
Naruto walked past them in a fog until the swing at the edge of the yard came into view.
He sank onto it, chains creaking, and stared at the dirt as his feet pushed him into a slow sway.
Around him, the world stayed loud.
"He failed again, right?"
"I saw him come out without a headband…"
"Honestly, it's safer this way…"
His fingers dug into the chains.
He wanted to scream "Stop" with everything he had. Make them all freeze. Make the whole village hang in the air so he could finally breathe.
But when he reached for that feeling, nothing answered. The number in his sight barely twitched.
1050
So he sat there in the noise, teeth clenched, eyes stinging, and let the swing creak back and forth.
Minutes crawled. He didn't notice the way the ghostly number in his vision slowly climbed, one tiny step at a time, like it was trying to drag itself back up.
1100
1200
1300
"Oi, Naruto."
The voice at his side made him flinch.
He looked up.
Mizuki stood a few steps away, arms folded loosely, expression gentle.
Naruto frowned. "What do you want? Here to tell me how bad I did?"
Mizuki shook his head. "No. I wanted to talk. About… another chance."
Naruto blinked, hope and suspicion tangling together in his chest.
"Another… chance?" he echoed.
Mizuki gave him a small, soft smile.
"Come see me tonight," he said quietly. "Behind the Academy. I'll tell you how you can still become a genin."
Naruto stared at him, grip tightening on the chains.
He'd failed. He'd used his weird power and failed anyway. He'd almost made a perfect clone and watched it fall apart in front of him. The floating number had gone from big and comfortable to tiny and scary in one day.
Another chance sounded like a hand reaching down into a pit.
He swallowed.
"…Okay," he said, voice low. "I'll be there."
Mizuki nodded once and walked away, disappearing back into the crowd.
Naruto sat on the swing a little longer, watching shadows stretch across the ground.
He didn't know why the number went down when he did weird stuff and jutsu, or why it crept up when he did nothing. He didn't know it was his chakra. He just knew that when it was big, he felt like himself, and when it was small, he felt like he might fall apart.
He only knew that for just one moment, he'd seen a proper clone standing tall in the smoke.
And somewhere under all the tiredness and hurt, that tiny glimpse flickered like a stubborn spark.